


A Sum of All Things

by cordeliadelayne



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Gen, Introspection, Season/Series 01
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-22
Updated: 2015-03-22
Packaged: 2018-03-19 00:31:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,002
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3589590
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cordeliadelayne/pseuds/cordeliadelayne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Skye doesn't have many possessions. But she treasures every one.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Sum of All Things

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers for all of season one. Written before season two started airing.

  
Skye didn't have many possessions. _Things_ meant that you'd spent long enough in one place to collect all sorts of objects that you didn't really need. _Things_ meant that you'd connected with people in such a way that they wanted to celebrate your place in their lives.

Her most treasured possession, always and forever and above everything else, was her laptop. It had set her free from the fate of the average kid in the system. She had learned to navigate in a secret cyber world that few people ever really understood. It had helped ease, though not erase, the crushing disappointment when one family after another returned her to sender.

 _Now,_ she got it. SHIELD, even Hydra SHIELD, had been looking out for her. But back then, that was when she'd started working on her tough girl, nothing ever bothers her, exterior. She'd watched enough TV to know that it probably wasn't totally healthy. But hardly anyone ever saw through it. Or, she guessed, hardly anyone had ever taken the time to see through it.

No matter what, she'd always be incredibly grateful that Coulson had been the exception. He treated her, and the rest of the team, with the same care he did all the old Captain America stuff he hoarded. Which was a little weird, but welcome all the same.

Her phone was another important piece of her. Not just because of the wifi. It was her photo album – much easier to carry around and scroll through at a moment's notice than the regular kind and it took up a lot less space.

There were more photos taken when the subject was unaware, rather than posed, than she would ever admit to. There were photos of people on there who she'd learned from over the years – both as reminders of what good people were capable of, and warnings against trusting too freely. (A lesson she still hadn't learned. And one she wasn't sure she actually wanted to). Families who had been kind to her were on there too, though after all this time she couldn't remember all of their names and regularly forced herself not to Google and track them down. She was sure even the kindest didn't give her a second thought these days.

Some of her favourite photos were of people she'd shared the odd meal on the road with. People who'd led lives even more tortured than hers and still faced the day with a smile. People who still had faith that it would all work out in the end.

Mike Peterson was on there, along with Ace. She stared at those photos quite a lot, imagining what her life would be like if she hadn't met Mike. And more importantly what his would have been like if they'd never met.

The whole team were there too, one posed group shot she'd cajoled even May into, and then individual photos of all of them, even Trip. When she found some spare time she was going to print off the team one and stick it up somewhere in her new bunk, though maybe she'd photoshop Ward out of it first.

She was surprised how many photos of Ward she had, though pleased somehow that she actually had more of her and Simmons together; having Simmons in her life was a gift she hadn't realised she'd been waiting for. She'd probably have quite a lot of photos of Coulson too, if he wasn't such a camera avoiding ninja.

It went without saying that she had less photos of May than of anybody else.

She couldn't erase the photos of Ward entirely though. It hadn't been love. She didn't trust enough to fall that easily, no matter what he evidently thought. It could have been something more than friendship though, if he'd ever once reached out, told the truth. She would have helped him. _Coulson_ would have helped him – he was the patron saint of second chances, after all.

But now all the good memories of her early days in SHIELD were tainted by all the bad of her last days in SHIELD. She couldn’t imagine how hard it was for Coulson and May, veterans who'd had to face down people they knew, people they'd trained. Some days she could hardly bear to think about it.

Most everything else she owned could be easily replaced. There were a few pieces of jewellery she'd been given from her third – no, fourth – foster mom, when she'd spent her one and only Christmas in a house with an honest to god white picket fence. But most of her accessories, and her clothes, had been picked up at flea markets and thrift stores, chosen for functionality rather than fashion. Fashion had no place in a van in the middle of winter with a broken heater.

When she thought about it, the sum of her things didn't really add up to much. Her past was framed by death, her present too - she couldn't see her future taking such a different course. Not when everyone thought that SHIELD stood for all that was bad in the world. It was something she could understand, though she didn't have to like it. Every big organisation had its problems, but SHIELD had saved her, in more ways than one. She had faith Coulson would get them back on track.

She had very little time for self-pity though, she never had. That wouldn't get the job done. Nor would looking back and considering what might have been, though she was only human (probably), and sometimes couldn't help herself. The future was theirs for the making, if only they could work together. She might not have many possessions, but she did have the same thing she'd always had, a family, even if they might pop up next to the definition of unconventional on Wikipedia.

Old SHIELD might have lost its way, but new SHIELD was going to be more than the sum of its parts. She'd make sure of it.


End file.
